The Building Is On Fire And It’s Not My Fault

I read a lot, and I surround myself with friends with similar tastes – how else am I going to find new books? This occasionally leads to ridiculousness, such as what *others* thought of as an early Halloween party.

Nope. Literature groupies.

Well, “literature,” in some people’s eyes. A fantasy set in modern Chicago with a detective noir wizard, written by a guy who wanted to do the Great American Novel, but was hounded by his writing teacher to do a pulp because his talents apparently lay in snark. Welcome to JIm Butcher‘s Dresden Files, because that writing assignment sold, as did the next 15 books, the short stories, the comic books, and the card game. And he’s not done writing the series.

The new books come out every year or three, so about every three or five years someone in my household re-reads the series. This year, we conned a largish group into reading along. It wasn’t much of a trick, as we mostly just posted the funny or snarky bits on Facebook with the hashtag #EverybodyReadsDresden and watched like minded readers come out of the woodwork.

We all read at different paces, but the eventual participants were invited into a party at my house.

“Where’s Bob?”

“Over there on the stack of porn.”

“Duh. Where else would he be.”

(Bob is a spirit of intellect, which alas does not mean he has good taste in reading material. He lives in a human skull, and is bribed in the series with cheap erotica when he needs to be cajoled.)

Mac was making steak sandwiches on the griddle while the vegetarian pizza was baking, and others begin eyeing the white frosted donuts (with sprinkles). I had a strong dark ale in a steampunky growler, and Mab also brought mulled wine. These foodstuffs make all attendees laugh, as they have particular importance or at least repetition over the 15 books. Or are part of a good one-liner:

“What do you want on your vegetarian pizza?” asks a throwaway character in book 3.

Harry is a smart ass. He’s rarely evenly matched and gets beat up a lot, but that doesn’t stop him from Doing What’s Right. Luckily, he has managed to gather an ensemble of characters who put up with him, including

Luccio the Warden in her grey cloak,

a blond cop named Karin Murphy, often described as “tiny but fierce”,

several knights of the cross like Micheal (“My faith protects me. My Kevlar helps”) and Shiro from Japan,

Lara, a vampire of sorts, who only helps when family matters convince her,

Ivy, who embodies a magical construct call The Archive, but is also a little girl,

Mab, the fae who embodies Winter, and has her own plans within plans

Mac, a barkeeper who keeps a neutral bar for the supernatural folks to come for good steaks and great beer.

Mr. Vaddurung, who eventually is known as a Norse being of some import

In the books, there are many other reoccurring characters, but these are the ones that showed up at my house, swords, staffs, bar aprons and all. Well, Vaddurung actually appeared as a bottle of scotch with Odin on the label, but I’m not going to complain. We had some duplication of costuming, but people discussing the plot line thus far occasionally fell into character in hilarious ways. Obviously, we like the snark.

A tall man with a wizard staff and duster stands in the living room, reading from a scroll I handed him:

“Things that I, Harry Dresden, am not allowed to do:

1. Sing ‘we’re off to see the wizard’ on the way to White Council Meetings.

2. Correct the Harry Potter books. From the library. In red pen.

3. ‘Klaatu Baraja Nikto’ is not an appropriate spell. Regardless of whether or not I say it correctly. Even though it did work.

4. Quoting Labyrinth to the faeries is just asking for trouble.

5. Answer questions I don’t know the answer to with ‘A wizard did it’. It was not funny the first time, nor the subsequent 17 times. Even if a wizard did do it. Especially if it was me.”

The scroll goes on for pages, many of the funnier items referencing actions from the books that will make no sense to folks who haven’t read the series, but had us rolling in laughter. (This is a homage to Skippy’s List, if you hadn’t hear of it, go read it – but the items on Dresden’s list were collected from several forums and many fans. I’ll add the whole thing below, but recommend only people who’ve read the series dig through it.)

The group chatted about who their favorite villain was. We made in-character jokes. We discussed pet theories about Mac, conspiracies, and what’s going to happen in the next book. (At this point, the nextbook will be called “Peace Talks” and we have *no idea* when it will be out, though the subreddit on the topic is slavering for it.)

I had printed out a bunch of phrases and off color in jokes and cut them up into 20 black cards and 60 white cards, and we had a tiny game of Cards Against Dresden. Some combos were reaching for it & missing, but some actually worked. Alas, we played sitting on a hardwood floor, and most of us are too old for that.